The Birth of Anak Krakatau

Vulcanic activity recommenced in may, 1883, and continued into august, the first eruptions appearing on northern, Perbuatan volcano. The number of active vents increased on both the northern volcanoes. On the 26 th and 27 th August a series of cataclysmic explosion occurred which were heard as .
Far away as South Australia and Ceylon. The generated tsunamis ( tidal waves ) that were registered even in the English Channel, and which in the Sunda Strait area were devastating, killing more than 36,000 people. The total volume of material ejected by the eruption is estimated at some 18-21 cubic kilometers, with an ash cloud circling the earth several times Causing “blue suns” and “orange moons” in Europe and North America. The amount of the sun’s energy reaching the earth was reduced, and in the year or two that followed, annual average temperatures in the northern hemisphere were lower than usual.
In the aftermath of the explosions only about a third of Krakatau remained. The northern two thirds, including the volcanoes Perbuatan and Danan and the northern half of the Rakata Volcano, were gone. In their place was a collapsed crater ( Caldera ) 200 m beneath the sea, covering an area of about 28 square kilometers.

The remaining, southern part of Rakata was left as an approximate half-cone with an almost perpendicular cliff from the summit ( 813 m ) to the sea, providing a natural, geological section trough the volcano. The other two islands, Sertung and Panjang, were enlarged considerably ( Sertung doubled in size ) by the glowing ash and pumice which the south and west coasts were smothered them to a depth of 30 meter.On Rakata , extended almost a kilometer seawards and the ash layer reached a thickness of 60 m in some areal,although probably mush shallower on the steeper slopes. Weeks after the explosion, rain water turned into steam as it trickled into crevices and even a month believed that all life, plant and animal, was destroyed on the islands. Yet the three island are now covered in forest, and over 200 species of higher plants and 36 species of land birds have been fond on Rakata in 1980.

Forty years after the main explosion, in 1927, volcanic activity was seen in the sea covering the old caldera, between the sites of the two northern most former volcanoes of Krakatau, where the greatest activity had occurred at the time of the two northern most former volcanoes of krakatau, where the greatest activity had occurred at the time of the cataclysm. a series of eruptions 185 m below the surface of the sea resulted in the emergence of tree new island one after the other. They were all soon destroyed by surf. Emerged from the sea on August 12 th 1930. It remained above water, and was aptly named Anak Krakatau ( Child of Krakatau ). It grew by the accumulation of ash, and suffered a devastating eruption in 1952, and another very destructive one in 1972. It is now vegetated: the succession of still at an early stage, Casuarina equisetifolia (cemara) being the dominant tree.